SURVIVING ABE: A Climate-Fiction Novel (7 page)

As Ela
walked out of the restaurant she met her mom walking in, "Meeting over?  Where’s the Lady’s Room?" Con asked.

"
Follow me, yes I’m done with the working vacation, and I'm now embarking on the real vacation I came to spend with you.  Shall we go to the spa before lunch and see if we can get a massage, pedicure, mud bath, or something?  My treat."

Time passed quickly while they indulged themselv
es.  After a late, leisurely lunch both women were taken aback at the change in the weather that had occurred while they were inside. A steady rain was now falling, horizontally at times, due to the gusts of wind that were ripping up the canyon in the direction they were headed.  They stopped under the porch roof just outside of the building's main entrance to look at the rain.

Ela
gave her mom a raised eyebrow, "Still think you’re fast, Mom?"  Without waiting for an answer she took off into the rain expecting her mom to try and jump the start.

"Wait!"
Con shouted, making Ela turn back toward her just in time to see her mom fly by.  They reached the car about the same time after Ela made up the ground lost to her mother’s subterfuge.

"Mom!  You cheated," she accused
with a laugh when they both were inside with the doors shut.

"
The gullible always feel cheated when bested by intellect," Con enlightened her daughter.

"
What’s your superior intellect telling you about this rain?" asked Ela, revealing her concern about the weather.

"Woman with leak
in sunroof will have rain drops on head, what’s your trained mind tell you?"

"
That I didn’t pay enough attention to the weather forecast this morning, guess I was worried about 'fracking' water theft and not the replacement cycle," Ela said as they crossed the Delores River that was now a powerful torrent of muddy water.

"
Hope this lets up enough for me to show you some property when we get up here a bit," Con remarked after settling in to adjust to the new driving conditions.

"
What property?"

"
Hank, remember him? Awhile back he heard about a twenty-acre parcel here in the canyon, for sale by owner, and he knows the owner.  We’ve talked about buying it together as an investment since neither of us like the bank’s interest rates anymore."

"
Together?  I knew there was more to Hank than your parking attendant.  You two been out parking by the way?"

"You wouldn’t ask that of a sixty
year old woman if you knew anything about aging.  We’re just not flexible enough to find the facilities a modern car offers a mood enhancer," Con answered as a matter of fact.  "Don’t go worrying about Hank.  We get along and enjoy one another’s company, but neither of us has room in our closets, or our hearts, for much beyond that."

"
Well if you two are practicing safe group investing I guess it’s okay.  Back to you spending my inheritance.  What’s on this property that makes it so exciting to you two love birds?"

"
Pterodactyls more like it, we’re too old to be birds," Con said wistfully.

"
My inheritance
. . ." Ela kiddingly reminded her mother to stay on topic.

"
So, there are two main attractions to the property.  Number one is water; it has an existing well with a year-round stream.  And number two is the price that Hank can get."

"
Water is important and becoming more important, that’s what I’ve just been talking about for an hour; the coming water wars of the Southwest.  Are we going to be able to get to the place in this rain that is now mocking the water shortage I’ve been preaching?"

"
It’s got really good access, so that won’t be a problem, but the way the canyon is socked in I don’t think you will be able to see all of the wonderful views from the home site," Con said glancing at the steady downpour and low clouds.

Their speed slowed as
Con watched for the turn-off, "Here we go.  This is the driveway in, it goes down to the bridge over the stream, which is West Creek on this end of Unaweep Canyon."

Ela
sat up and looked at the conditions of the sky and the road, "Well, it has let off a little for the moment, visibility is better; you’re sure we won’t get stuck or something?"

"It's just a little further
in here, we’ll be fine," Con said as they neared the bridge.  She slowly pulled the front tires onto gray slabs of pine that lay across three supporting logs, which spanned the narrow creek.  With a thump the front tires fell off the bridge on the far side just before the rear tires fell off with an even bigger thump.

Ela
jumped, "Sure glad that worked, but it didn’t sound healthy.  We need to be careful and try to miss that big hole on this side of the bridge when we go back."

Con frowned, “Yeah, I’ll tell Hank about it on Friday, s
ee what he thinks."

Con continued
to the proposed home site, near the well's location, on the raised gravel driveway.  Though the clouds had lifted momentarily, the tops of the canyon walls were not visible.  Even with the limited view Ela could see the potential and felt it would be a great location. The caveat being the cost of materials and labor required in taking it from a bare piece of ground and turning it into a place to live.

Another thought occurred to Ela
and she dug out her smart phone, "I hope there is a landline around here you can hook into, or we won’t be talking much. There’s no cell or data service here."

Con dug out her cell and verified what he
r daughter had just told her.  "You’re right, I didn’t think about that. That’s another thing to bring up to Hank. Other than that, what do you think?"

"
Mom, it’s hard to tell with this weather, but I'm sure the views are gorgeous.  And it's good that it has the well. You might need a new bridge, though.  We better check that thing really good before we try to go back over it, and I vote we do that now. It’s starting to get dark, and it's raining again."

"I agree, let’s go,"
Con said starting the car. She circled around the home site shining the headlights on the wellhead and stopping briefly, "There’s the big draw of the property, that and the Discovery Channel buying land and pushing up land prices around Gateway."

"
Mom, look!  The water is coming around this side of the bridge!" Ela grabbed her mom’s arm.

"
I see it.  Let’s ease up there and see if we can get up on it," Con said with more confidence than she felt.

"
I don’t know, Mom.  Everything I’ve heard says not to attempt to drive through water you do not know the depth of.  How deep is that low spot?"

The front of the car started angling down sharply and Con stabbed the brakes.
Quickly slapping the shift lever into reverse and mashing the gas, she let off the brake slowly. The car didn’t go forward as the brakes released, but it didn’t back up, either.

"
Maybe we should have checked it before we crossed the first time," Con admitted through gritted teeth, willing the car to back up as she gave the 4-cylinder engine more gas.

E
ver so slowly the car started backing up, rocking forward, then back again, but the front end wasn’t coming up much until the tires finally dug down and found some traction.  The front of the car popped up then fell down as if backing over a tall, square speed bump.  In this case it was the top of the shoring timbers that had supported this end of the bridge.

When the tires rolled off
, the front of the car slammed down on the timbers with a sick sounding thud.  Con winced, but she stabbed the gas again and they shot backwards for ten yards before she could let off and gain control.

In the headlights the closest end
of the bridge was sagging downstream. Con stopped the car with the headlights shining through the downpour of rain on the bridge.  Then something gave on the other end, and the bridge became disappearing scrap lumber.

"
Did I mention how remote this property is on this side of the year-round water source?"

"
This isn’t the time for joking around.  Can we cross somewhere else?" Ela was digging out her phone.  "No service and no bridge out of nowhere. Where’s Sarah Palin when you need her?

"
Bridge to nowhere and a bridge out of nowhere, I get it.  Are you calling your possible future inheritance nowhere?"

Ela
turned to her mother and opened her mouth—

Con co
ntinued before Ela could speak, "And you said it's no time for joking around!"

They both laughed for a moment because it was easier than crying this early in a crisis.
After the laughter came silence as each of them took time to consider their new reality for the coming night. Torrential rain pounded on the car, the sound becoming louder, threatening even, now that it had washed out the bridge and trapped them.

Con took action first and started
with backing away from the overflowing stream and going back to the higher ground at the home site.  She then slowly cruised around until the car was as level as possible, and parked facing toward the highway.

"What timing
, Mom.  Hard to believe I’ve been racking my brain trying to solve a water shortage problem."

"
I’ve told you since you were in diapers about the power of positive thinking, have I not? One would think you would have learned to control it by now.  How old are you anyway?"

Ela
ignored her question and asked one of her own, "Good thing I got you that massage today, huh?  You’ll be much more pliable 'parking' tonight with your daughter!" Ela giggled.  "Got blankets?"

"
I'll invoke the Fifth on that one, or you’ll claim you have evidence of my juvenile delinquency."

"
I already have copious evidence of that.  So, let me get this straight.  We have a flooding stream between us and the highway, and enough of a ridge that we can’t even see the highway, right?"

"You are correct
, so far."

"It's r
aining so hard that cats and dogs are expected momentarily."

"Check."

"We're incommunicado."

"Check."

Ela opened her mouth to continue, but she’d run out of steam.

"
Buuut
," Con accentuated and then continued, "Lucky for you it is your old mom you’re stranded with and I
can
confess that sleeping bags, food and water are stored in the rear compartment for emergencies."

"What kind of food?"
Ela asked with some dread evident in her voice.

"
Oh, some granola bars, trail mix, and other goodies."

"
I’m not yet hungry after that big lunch," Ela answered with some alarm.  "What is it with granola anyway?  Every time something bad happens, or is about to happen, somebody starts breaking out granola bars.  They've become a bad omen; they scare me!"

"
Okay, already!  You can have the trail mix, Sweetie," Con soothed.

"
Thanks, Mom.  How about a bedtime story too?"

Con quickly opened he
r door and jumped out, slamming it shut.  Just as quickly she was in the backseat followed by the rear door’s slam.  "First dibs on the backseat tonight."

Ela
watched as her mother folded down half of the backseat for access to the rear cargo compartment.  A flashlight came on and she started opening bags, digging around briefly, then turned back to Ela, her blindingly bright headlamp full in Ela’s eyes. "Oh sorry," Con said taking it off her head and putting it, inverted, around a gallon jug of water.  The opaque water jug gave off a comfortable glow, so they now had light without danger of running the car’s battery down.

"
Ela, I’m very sorry about this.  We have three-quarters of a tank of gas and plenty of food and water, so we’ll be fine.  As soon as it gets light in the morning we can probably find a place to cross the creek and walk up to the highway to get help.  It’s an adventure!"

"
Adventure is hardship—remembered in comfort!"  Ela reminded her mother of one of her own sayings, and then asked, "Hmm, where did I hear that?"

"
Okay, if you want comfort we can lay the backseats down flat, spread out the sleeping pads, then the sleeping bags, and then I’ll tell you a bedtime story."

"
Oh gee, it’s a sleep over with Mom, in a car, in the middle of nowhere, with a bedtime story.  This is the stuff adventure vacations are made of?"

"It comes with granola bars
too," Con added.

"Not on my side.
  Keep your granola crumbs to yourself."

"Ingrate,"
said Con.